Review: Joos Orange Solar Charger

It's an unavoidable fact of life: Your gadgets need juice —like a preacher needs pain, like thunder needs rain. (Thank you, Bono.) And when it comes to portable power-ups, our new favorite flavor is Orange.

The Joos Orange solar charger is the physical manifestation of simplicity. It's rugged, easy to store and carry, and (most importantly) quick to bestow a watt or two whenever you need it. Simply choose the correct adapter (the Orange comes with seven of the most popular ones), plug in your depleted phone or DS into the charger and let the life-giving juice flow. Yep, that's it.

Weighing in at a pound-and-a-half, the Orange is roughly the same size and weight as an iPad —and arguably a lot more useful. It can be completely submersed in water, dropped, kicked, and, in general, take the worst abuse man or nature can dish out.

Nestled inside its durable polycarbonate shell is a super-efficient 5,400-milliamp-hour replaceable lithium-ion battery capable of holding its charge for years. In our tests, we managed to dole out four full charges to a completely depleted iPhone before the Orange needed a solar recharge. It even fully charged the notoriously fickle iPad.

While PC owners will be able to download a standalone GUI for precise power metrics, the unit also has two LED status lights on the sides: one solar light (red) and other for the battery (green). When the Orange is running, the red light will blink rapidly to let you know you're getting juiced. Similarly, the green light spits out one blink for every 20 percent of the battery that's full. Four blinks and you know you have a battery that's between 60 and 80 percent full. Even better: the Orange comes with a pair of attachable reflectors that help collect somewhere between 20-30 percent more power when affixed to both ends.

No sun? No problem. While our test model wasn't equipped to charge efficiently by USB, the folks at Solar Components assured us that production models can be refilled at the standard USB charging rate (500 milliamps at 5 volts or 2.5 watts).

So go ahead and leave those outlets. Sucking down solar power has never been easier.